


The Cavalier Damsel

by HC_Weatherfield



Series: The Celery Fields (An Ineffable Wives!verse) [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale is a royalist obviously, English Civil War, Ineffable Wives, King Charles II - Freeform, sexy Puritan Crowley, you can't kill kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 04:06:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21155342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HC_Weatherfield/pseuds/HC_Weatherfield
Summary: Crowley takes a moment out of her busy life of fucking with Puritan extremists to rescue her very stupid, very frilly angel from certain discorporation (again).





	The Cavalier Damsel

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back, friends! Hope y'all love seventeenth-century English history, 'cause that's what we're serving today! If you don't know about the English Civil War, please take a brief peek at the end note for a summary. To those in the know, I say: I am an American, so even though I enjoy a little self-indulgent schmoop about the lovable garbage dump known as Charles II Stuart, I promise I really -do- hate the monarchy. Promise.

The camp was awash in misery, groans of pain arising from men who had never so much as worn ill-fitting boots before the war had started. There were peasants, too, of course, but they tended to be quieter.

Aziraphale was focusing on these peasants, naturally, as she went from tent to tent with her bucket of water. Guns may give weight to moral arguments, but the poor were rarely involved in such arguments of their own free will. So while she encouraged her friends in Charles’ court, it was their subjects she healed in the field. Buckshot in a boy’s arm was miraculously clear of infection; a breadwinner’s leg was not, as the surgeon had first assumed, entirely shattered. Mold disappeared from bread, water ceased to taste stale, armor felt just a bit lighter. Few connected these small boons with the presence of the fine lady who glided through the camp, festooned in cream-colored silk, dispensing warm smiles and sips of water. But some did, and thanked God for sending them an angel.

Only one person was truly unhappy to see Aziraphale there, and she was striding menacingly in her direction now. She was dressed in severe Puritan garb: a high-necked black dress with a glimpse of a snow-white kerchief at the collar, and a severe dark-gray cap that seemed to scold her brilliant red hair for its vanity. Her dark glasses hid the angry flash in her eyes, but that didn’t matter. Aziraphale could _feel_ it.

“Angel!” hissed the other woman-shaped being. “What are you doing here?”

“Hello, Crowley,” said Aziraphale calmly. “I’m doing the same thing you are, presumably.”

“Pah,” said Crowley, “in that? Not likely! There’s not a speck on it!”

“I have standards. Anyway, you’re one to talk! Demon on the battlefield, not a drop of blood on you.”

“Of _course_ there is!” Crowley growled. “Why do you think I’m wearing black?”

“You know,” said Aziraphale, “I’ve often speculated as to that. My current best theory is that you dress in perpetual mourning for your lost Grace.”

“I--is that _really_ what you think?”

“Have I cut too close to the quick there, my dear lass?” she asked hopefully.

“Mourning colors change, Angel. What doesn’t change is the fact that black clothes don’t show bloodstains.” Crowley rolled her eyes, another action Aziraphale could feel but not see.

“Regardless,” said Aziraphale, “I don’t see how it’s any business of yours what I’m doing here. Especially since you’re working for the enemy.”

“Oh, not _for_ the enemy,” Crowley protested. “Hardly even _with_ them, really. Bunch of wet blankets, when you get right down to it.”

“The Puritans?” Aziraphale said sharply, “Yes, rather.”

“Though, to be honest,” continued Crowley, “I rather thought you would end up with the Roundheads yourself. Righteous types, aren’t they? Godly?”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Aziraphale primly.

“Well, I would.” Crowley sighed. “Mad for Her, the lot of them. Constant prayer, in those circles. Even Dagon couldn’t arrange a meeting that dull. I’m thinking of sending her the minutes for reference.”

“Rather ironic, isn’t it?”

“Ironic, Angel?”

“Well, yes. Coming from that sort of person, I can’t imagine prayer in that volume pleases the Almighty. ‘Words without thoughts never to Heaven go,’ you know.”

“Is that so?” asked Crowley slyly. “And where is this information coming from? Has She become suddenly communicative this millennium?”

“Well, no,” Aziraphale admitted, fidgeting, “not as such. But it stands to reason, doesn’t it?”

“I dunno. S’pose it depends on how the Almighty feels about card games and Christmas pudding. Oh, don’t pout, Angel. I know how _you_ feel about Christmas pudding.”

“And yet you work against it,” she sniffed. “_Fiend_.”

“As I said, Angel, I’m not working with--that is, I’m not against--urrrgh!” Crowley began to pace in circles around Aziraphale. “I got a commendation! Can you believe it! For this? Dry as dust! No style at all! Millennia of appearing to do stellar work, and _this_ is what they think of me?”

“So you’re saying...Cromwell isn’t one of yours?”

“NaaaAAWuh-ooo!” Crowley cried, “Of course not! Can you think of anything as dreadfully human as all this?” So saying, she gestured to the well-trodden field past the camp. “Anyway, you know war’s never been my thing.”

“Good,” said Aziraphale, taking a long look at Crowley. “I shouldn’t like to think it was.”

“No,” agreed Crowley. “More your thing, isn’t it? Being a Principality?”

“I suppose,” said Aziraphale. She frowned thoughtfully. “That’s why I’m here. The establishment of a commonwealth is a noble cause, but not if it plans to be just as repressive as the monarchy it replaces. At that point, it just destabilizes the populace needlessly.”

“So you’re here _against_ war?”

“Against _wasteful_ war, yes.”

“Angel,” said Crowley coolly, “all war is wasteful.”

“Not _just_ warfare. A _just_ war glorifies the Almighty.”

“I wonder if you’ll always feel that way.”

“Of course I will,” said Aziraphale uncomfortably. “I am righteous and eternal.”

“Right,” Crowley snorted. “Well, I’m here to get your righteous and eternal arse out of here.”

“Good heavens. Why?”

“They’re going to win, Angel. The Puritans. You know that, right? Everyone important is either going to escape or go to prison.”

“And?”

“I’ve heard talk of beheadings,” said Crowley grimly. “You could be discorporated.”

“Nonsense,” said Aziraphale. “I’m not so very well-known as all that.”

“I have a hard time believing that, _Lady Zira of Phaleston_.”

“I thought it was rather good,” Aziraphale argued. “Anyway, _Antonia_, don’t your people find your name a bit Roman for their taste?”

“They would, if they knew me by that name,” said Crowley smugly. “Luckily, they instead know me as Chastity Thou-Shalt-Have-No-Other-Gods-Before-Me Crowley, or Goody Crowley, or the Widow Crowley.”

“How vile,” said Aziraphale, patting Crowley’s should sympathetically.

“Oh, rather,” Crowley agreed, but she said it with relish. “The things these people come up with!”

“Indeed.” They were both silent for a moment. Crowley observed the way the angel looked down, golden lashes shadowing her pale cheeks, her plump lower lip bitten in concern.

“What’s wrong, Angel?” Crowley asked at length.

“It’s James and Charlie,” she said, “Charles’ boys. I’ve grown fond of them. I _must_ see to their safety, my dear.”

“Angel, look at me.” When Aziraphale kept her eyes on the ground, Crowley placed a finger under her chin and gently guided her face up until their eyes met. “Remember the Arrangement? Let me take this one. You think I’ll let them kill kids?”

“I don’t know,” said Aziraphale, eyes wide, “you have before.”

Crowley hissed and dropped her hand from the Angel’s face.

“That wassss different. You know that.” Behind her dark glasses, Crowley was staring her down mercilessly. “It wasss an act of God.”

Aziraphale swallowed.

“Bah,” said Crowley, “It’s no use, is it? Get off this island, Angel. I’ll get the kids to you safely. No guarantees about their dad, though. I can only do so much.” That said, she turned on the heel and sauntered away.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale called after her. Crowley turned.

“Yes, Angel?”

“Can you ever forgive me?”

“‘Course I can. Just give me a few years.” She grimaced. “And don’t spread it around.”

“As you say, dear.”

Then, Crowley really _did_ walk away. Looking after her, Aziraphale sighed. Then she picked up her water bucket, determined to make one more round before her escape.

~

Some years later, an Angel waited in a tavern by the docks for a young man to arrive on the continent. She nervously sipped her wine and worried at a rather nice roast, both of which she quite forgot when a page knocked on the door of her private dining-room to announce her guest. Aziraphale stood to meet him.

The situation, to an uninformed observer, would appear quite ridiculous: a finely dressed lady of mature years looks with awe upon a thin, tall, long-limbed youth and, without regard to his travel-weary clothes, disordered hair, and ill-fitting shoes, sinks into a deep curtsey. For the two actors in the scene, however, there was only joy. The boy broke into a smile, crooked and sweet.

“Auntie Zira,” he said, and she crossed the room to wrap him in her arms. He was a head taller than she, but bent down to rest his head on her shoulder. Given permission in the warmth of her embrace, he let out a single shudder of relief and, deep within that, heavy grief. The Angel stroked his hair.

“I used to kiss the top of your head, dear boy, but you’ve grown too tall for that now.”

“Can’t be helped, Auntie.” He shuddered again. “Change comes, with or without our approbation.”

“My dear boy. You have grown in more than height, and I think you have had to do so much earlier than is proper.”

“I think it _is_ proper.” He lifted his head to look at her, his eyes wounded and determined. “I _should_ be grown up. I will be King one day.”

“I suppose you will, at that,” said Aziraphale, and kissed him on the cheek. “Now, have some food and wine, then we will get you cleaned up and fit to be seen. I am charged to deliver you to your mother.”

The young exile agreed readily, and they sat down to their meal, the Angel’s appetite restored by her companion’s enthusiasm.

Charlie had a lot of trouble ahead of him, Aziraphale knew. His father was in prison, and the deposed King’s chances of survival weren’t high. The Stuarts were defeated, and, excepting the generosity of other royal courts, they were homeless. But seeing Charlie there, eating heartily, his spirit unbroken, she thought the boy just might be all right in the end. Yes, this was about the best it could have turned out. Aziraphale smiled to herself; once Charlie was safely delivered, she had a letter to write.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're asking, "what the fuck was the English Civil War, which is not covered in my AP history books as minted in Texas?" Then, baby, same. Here's what I found out when I got to grad school: in the middle of the seventeenth century, a cadre of nouveau riche Puritans instituted a coup against the monarchy, leading to several years of warfare that culminated in the beheading of King Charles I and a decade-long "interregnum" (period between rules) under dictator Oliver Cromwell. The subsequent return to England and coronation of King Charles II, and the ensuing several decades of prosperity, have been termed the "Restoration." You may know the term from theatre or literature classes, since Charles' jovial and reasonably open-minded court saw a flourishing of art and literature, helped along by Charles' sensible decision that women really should be allowed to act on stage. After all, the French do it all the time.  
I used to study this period of history for a living, so it was impossible for me not to place our two heroines in it.
> 
> So yes, this is going to be a real series, but no, you won't need to read the various pieces in order. I don't plan to write them in order. God and I work in mysterious ways.


End file.
